You can’t wash your hands with anything cheaper than bar soap. But ick – that slimy soap scum floating in the soap dish. If you’re a clean freak and get some kind of kick out of removing that scum on a daily basis, then okay – stick with your bar soap. If, however, household cleaning of any sort is something you endeavor to do as little as possible, consider instead washing your hands with an inexpensive – and much neater – alternative. Shampoo!

In place of far more costly liquid hand soap, I’ve been washing my hands with shampoo for years now. And if you buy 15 or 16 ounces of shampoo on sale for less than a dollar, as I always do, you’ll be paying less than half the price of liquid hand soap.

The other plus along with saving money is the great selection of fragrances. Partial to coconut, I also like aloe and almond. I was surprised to discover that shampoo is easy on the skin too. Normally I buy a moisturizing shampoo, both for my scalp and mitts. This seems to contain just enough moisturizer to keep my hands from drying out, yet not so much it leaves them feeling sticky.

Shampoo also appears to cleanse hands every bit as thoroughly as soap. And, living in New York City with its’ over the top energy and who knows how many strains of world class germs and oddball bacteria lurking on every block, bus and subway, I wash my hands a lot. So far, nothing I have heard or read contradicts shampoo’s effectiveness at removing these big city germs.

To those who claim washing hands with anti-bacterial soap is superior for removing bacteria, I’ve heard Dr. Oz (an Oprah favorite) claim that isn’t so. Our bodies are covered, he said, with good and bad bacteria and the anti-bacterial soap unfortunately removes all the good bacteria with the bad. And we need that good bacteria to constantly battle the bad.

So spritz some nice smelling shampoo into your hands and give it a lather. Your nose, good bacteria and piggy bank will thank you.